Esprit de corps: Steve Bosbonis's career touched three service branches

Dec. 3, 2013

Updated 9:32 p.m.

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Veteran Steve Bosbonis is all smiles as he dons his fighter pilot jacket. "It been over 30 years since I wore this jacket, its has a lot of mileage, those were good days, " Bosbonis said. Bosbonis served in three branches of the U.S. military, Army, Navy and Marine Corps. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Steve Bosbonis (right) during his four years in the Army, at Ft. Eustis, Va., early 1950's. Bosbonis would go on to serve briefly as a Navy midshipman and 20 years in the Marine Corps. COURTSESY OF STEVE BOSBONIS

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2nd Lt. Steve Bosbonis, 1950's. Bosbonis served in the Army, briefly as a Navy midshipman, then as a Marine Corps pilot for 20 years. COURTESY, STEVE BOSBONIS

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Steve Bosbonis, airborne over Vietnam, 1969. Bosbonis flew more than 1,500 missions during his two tours in 1965 to 1966 and again in 1969 to 1970. COURTESY OF STEVE BOSBONIS

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Veteran Steve Bosbonis shows a case filled with his medals and military memorabilia. Bosbonis served in the Army, briefly as a Navy midshipman and in the Marine Corps. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Veteran Steve Bosbonis shows his military dog tags, which he adorned with a St. Christopher's medal and a can opener. Bosbonis served in the Army, briefly as a Navy midshipman and in the Marine Corps. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Veteran Steve Bosbonis is all smiles as he dons his fighter pilot jacket. "It been over 30 years since I wore this jacket, its has a lot of mileage, those were good days, " Bosbonis said. Bosbonis served in three branches of the U.S. military, Army, Navy and Marine Corps. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Bosbonis and his wife Eileen have attended helicopter squadron reunions for many years. But fewer attend every year.

“It seems like we lose about three each year,” Eileen said.

The 2010 U.S. Census estimates that of the nearly 9.1 million men and women who served in the military during the Vietnam era, 16 percent of them have died.

“It’s very disheartening,” Bosbonis said. “But being the second-oldest living squadron member, I’m very fortunate to still be around.”

Bosbonis is beginning to feel like the World War II veterans, who began dying at a rapid rate in the early 2000’s, sometimes 1,000 per day, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs report.

In the Irvine home Bosbonis has shared with his wife since 1974, he dug his flight jacket out of the garage, beaming with pride when he discovered it still fit. The brown leather, adorned with various squadron patches now faded with age, also conjured up vivid memories of his nearly thirty years in uniform.

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Bosbonis joined the Army reserve in the late 1940’s, serving as railroad instructor for about four years. But he aspired for much more. “When I was a kid, I once saw a train go by and I said to myself, I’m going to drive one of them someday,” Bosbonis said. “And after being on the railroad, I decided I wanted to fly.”

He was discharged from the Army and accepted to Air Force flight school. But when he was told he would be sent to navigator school instead, it didn’t sit well with him. In 1953 when the draft board told him he would have to join the infantry and ship out to Korea, he had other ideas.

Shortly after a chat with a navy recruiter, he was aboard a train headed to Pensacola, Florida to become a naval aviator.

Bosbonis originally planned to serve in the navy, but changed his mind during aviation officer candidate school.

“I’m allergic to boats,” Bosbonis laughed. “And we also had this thing we called ‘Cinderella Liberty’ where we had to be back by midnight. The marine officers got overnight liberty on Saturday’s and I had a girlfriend at the time. So I went into the battalion commander’s office and said, ‘Sir, I would like to be a Marine instead.’”

Bosbonis’ service was changed yet again and he was commissioned a Marine Corps second lieutenant at Chase Field in Beeville, Texas in 1954.

Later that year he found himself at El Toro, which at that time was fairly isolated from Santa Ana and surrounded by orange groves. Bosbonis said the two-lane road linking Santa Ana, Tustin and San Juan Capistrano was known as “Death Highway” because of the many accidents caused by drunken Marines, mostly returning from liberty in Santa Ana.

The sick bay at El Toro is where he met Eileen.

“I hated redheads,” he laughed. “But she was a redheaded nurse I took a shining to.”

Because Bosbonis was an officer and Eileen an enlisted corpsman, fraternization regulations forced them to keep their relationship discreet. But three months later, she was out of the navy and they were married. Then Bosbonis was sent to Japan, his first of many overseas deployments. The separations became almost routine for the couple, who eventually would have four children.

One day in 1962 during dinner, the phone jangled in their house near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; the Cuban Missile Crisis was brewing and nearly every member of the U.S. military was called up. “The voice on the other end of the phone said, ‘Report. Do not say anything to anyone.’ I got up and excused myself and left the house, “Bosbonis said. “A few days later, I was on an old LST (tank landing ship) just waiting. We really all thought we were going to have to go ashore.”

Eileen, who was terrified by her husband’s silence, said it wasn’t until President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation that she figured out what was happening. “I knew something big was going on,” she said. “But I didn’t know what. I kept hearing trucks full of troops and things going by. But when the President told us, it all made sense.”

When troops began piling into Vietnam, Bosbonis was sent to Da Nang Air Base. He was almost 40, old enough to be the father of most of the young men fighting the war. He had transitioned to become a helicopter pilot and flew various missions in Vietnam, including medevacs (medical evacuations) and landing Marines deep into the jungle, where he was often under fire.

“I could take off from Da Nang and stay within its boundaries and still come back with bullet holes in the helicopter.”

Bosbonis said one particular brush with death sticks out above most of the others. As he and his crew came into a hot landing zone, he turned his head to the right briefly, just missing a bullet. On one mission, he took shrapnel to his arm, which earned him his Purple Heart.

Seeing casualties and body bags always bothered Bosbonis, he said, but one particular experience in which he saw a badly wounded Vietnamese boy, still troubles him. Bosbonis recalls handing the boy an apple and being haunted by the grateful smile lighting the boys face.

As his military career came to an end at El Toro in 1974, the Bosbonis’s settled in a new home, marveling at Irvine’s rapid growth. Bosbonis went to work as a bus driver for the Orange County Transit Authority, retiring for good in 1989.

One of the Bosbonis’s Irvine neighbors was Bill Barber, the Medal of Honor recipient and namesake of city’s Colonel Bill Barber Marine Corps Memorial Park. Bosbonis said he and his family always celebrated the Fourth of July with the Barbers, but that the two men almost never discussed their military service, particularly around others.

And while Bosbonis still carries the painful memories, he’s also made peace with them. He visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., searching the black gabbro wall to find the names of two of his squadron mates who didn’t make it home. “It was emotional,” he said softly.

He and Eileen now split their time between their Irvine home and a cabin in Alabama.

Given his opportunity to experience Army, Navy and Marine culture, which one was best?

“The Marine Corps was like being with family,” he said. “We all looked out for one another.”

They all still do that.

The next reunion is scheduled for next September in Washington D.C.

He knows though that fewer of the men of his squadron will be attending.

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